Exhibit Saturday: Snapshots of life in Brush Park

August 22, 2014

Loading Photo Galleries ...

A painted wooden heart nailed to a chain-locked door of a house on Watson Street in Brush Park / Diane Weiss

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Brush Park, just north of downtown Detroit, is a historic neighborhood that once was filled with grand Victorian mansions. Some homes have been reclaimed, but others are skeletons and only hint at their grand past lives. Others have disappeared. But what Diane Weiss, a picture editor at the Free Press, sees in her neighborhood is vibrancy — even in the decaying homes.

For the last two years, Weiss has walked and biked her neighborhood bringing her iPhone to capture the neighborhood’s colors and its residents — some of whom have been there for decades, others have only recently moved in. Weiss, who received a National Press Photographers Association Short Grant to support her photo project, shares her photos on the Instagram account BrushPark_MyHood, where she often uses the low-fi filter, accentuating the color. Color is what draws her to the photographs she has taken in her neighborhood.

“I refuse to turn any of my pictures into black and white,” she says.

On Saturday, Weiss will show her photos of the neighborhood on Adelaide between Brush and John R, at one of the forgotten parks in Detroit that has been reclaimed by neighbors and volunteers. The show runs 5-8 p.m.